SI had a fun read on elite defensive lineman and where they came from.
"UCLA coach Rick Neuheisel posed a fascinating question during a conversation last summer. Where, Neuheisel asked, can a coach go to find the best defensive linemen?
Neuheisel had spent the offseason trying to replace star lineman Brian Price, so he knew the challenge of finding a 300-pound space eater who could hang with an elite sprinter for the first 10 meters of a race. Neuheisel wondered aloud if there is an area of the country that produces more quick, agile 300-pound tackles and blazing fast 275-pound ends than anywhere else. Neuheisel had good reason to ask. To a man, coaches say an elite defensive lineman is the toughest prospect to find and the biggest help to a program. "They can equalize a lot of problems for you," Arizona coach Mike Stoops said.
There is a region that produces a higher percentage of elite defensive linemen, and anyone who has watched the past five BCS title games should have an idea where to point on the map. Think back to who made the biggest plays in those games -- all of which were won by a team from the SEC. Following the 2006 season, Florida ends Derrick Harvey and Jarvis Moss and tackle Ray McDonald blew past flabbergasted Ohio State offensive linemen. The next year, LSU tackle Glenn Dorsey similarly flummoxed the Buckeyes. A year later, Florida end Carlos Dunlap seemed to be everywhere against Oklahoma. The next year, 300-pound Alabama end Marcell Dareus knocked Texas quarterback Colt McCoy from the BCS title game with a sack and then returned an intercepted shovel pass 29 yards -- with a stiffarm and a pirouette -- for a touchdown.
Earlier this month, Auburn's Nick Fairley added his name to that list. The 6-foot-5, 298-pounder obliterated Oregon quarterback Darron Thomas' zone reads and singlehandedly disrupted an offense that had buzzsawed most of the Pac-10. "I don't know how many guys like Nick are out there," Auburn coach Gene Chizik said the next morning. "We are blessed to have him. They don't come along very often."
What do those linemen have in common? Except for Moss (Texas) and Harvey (Maryland), all played their high school football in the region commonly known as the deep South. McDonald is from Belle Glade, Fla. Dorsey is from Gonzales, La. Dunlap is from North Charleston, S.C. Dareus is from Huffman, Ala. Fairley is from Mobile, Ala.
So that provides an anecdotal answer to Neuheisel's question, but what about an empirical one? Which area of the country produces the most elite defensive linemen?
Simply logging the hometowns of football recruits -- as I did two years ago for the State of Recruiting project -- wouldn't answer the question. Such a study wouldn't address quality. So instead of using college players, I decided to use NFL players. Unlike quarterback, the defensive line positions have few political underpinnings. It doesn't matter how much a guy gets paid. If he gets blocked too often, he gets cut. The NFL's Darwinian nature allows us to be reasonably confident that the defensive linemen on the rosters now are the best the world has to offer at the moment. So I logged the high school hometowns of all 309 defensive linemen who ended the 2010 season on a roster or on injured reserve to get a snapshot of which areas produce the most elite defensive linemen.
The results won't make Neuheisel feel any better.
Despite the fact that the region accounts for only 22.1 percent of the nation's population, 43 percent of the NFL's defensive linemen went to high school in the following 10 states: Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina and Tennessee.
Now let's look at another 10-state region that accounts for 22.5 percent of the nation's population. Arizona, California, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Utah and Washington produced just 13.6 percent of the NFL's defensive linemen. The region that is home to the Pac-10 -- soon to be the Pac-12 with the addition this year of Colorado and Utah -- suffers from a severe shortage of elite defensive linemen compared to the region populated by the schools of the SEC and the ACC.
(It should be noted that despite the quantity, the quality out West is quite high. The aforementioned Price came from LA's Crenshaw High and dominated in college, while Nebraska Cornhusker-turned-Detroit Lion Ndamukong Suh -- perhaps the most dominant college defensive tackle of the past 10 years -- is from Portland, Ore.)
Things aren't much better in Big Ten country. While metro Detroit seems to be a productive pocket for defensive linemen, a nine-state region (Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, Nebraska, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin) that is home to 22.5 percent of the nation's citizens produced just 13.6 percent of the NFL's defensive linemen.
Just as it did in the State of Recruiting project, Florida led the nation in players produced. The state of 18.5 million produced 35 linemen. Texas produced a whopping 26 NFL defensive linemen, but Texas is a whopping state of 24.8 million citizens. For better economy, go to Louisiana, a state of 4.5 million that produced 17 players, including Dorsey and end Tyson Jackson (Edgard, La.), who were teammates at LSU and now play together in Kansas City.
The only region that seems to come close to the South in terms of production is the Eastern Seaboard. Maryland, the District of Columbia and New Jersey all produced more than their share of players relative to their populations."
From here
sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2011/writers/a...?xid=cnnbin&hpt=Sbin